Mother Monolouge Midwife/Unassisted

We are mothers

We are mothers whose babies were both born at home

I labored with support my midwife was there

I was mostly alone I was unassited

We were naked and primal as mother bears

It happened so fast

Here's his feet

Here's her head

I moaned and I groaned

I monologued whiled I circled the rug like an old mother dog

We had safe healthy babies

We Are Mothers

Mother Monolouge Waterbirth/Landbirth

We are Mothers

My baby was full term

My baby was premature

We birthed at the hosptial

My baby was head down

My baby was breech

We had vaginal births

I labored naturally

I had PROM and Pitocin


We didn't use pain medication

I had and midwife

I had and OB


We hardly pushed

We had healthy girls

We Are Mothers

Mother Monolouge Natural/ Epidural

WE Are Mothers

I was surrounded by love

I was surrounded by medicine

We were surrounded by family

I endured the pain willingly

I had bad pain


We were empowered by our births

I felt powerful

I felt helpless lost and trapped

We had vaginal births

I enjoyed the silence of no machines

I was on someone else's schedule

We bonded with our babies

Mother Monolouge Hospital birth /Homebirth

WE ARE MOTHERS

I didn't feel comfortable in the hospital gown

I was NAKED

We were watching the clock

I was medicated

I was empowered

We felt acceptance

I was told what I needed instead of being asked

I accomplished a VBAC

We felt Release

My baby was taken from me

I caught my baby myself

We were overjoyed to meet our child

We were not completely taken care of

We were glad to be home

We Are Mothers

Red Tent Mother Monologues

We had a wonderful Red Tent at the BOLD events. We celebrated being mothers. We partnered with other mothers that had different birth experiences and found out through our differences we had also had simularities. The women came up with some beautiful monologues that were performed and I thought I'd share...

GFOM attends DONA conference

Thank you to DONA International who invited GA Friends of Midwives to set up a booth at the 15th Annual DONA International Conference in Atlanta this weekend! Today I collected about ten more signatures from Georgia woman who want to donate their time and energy to the GFOM cause. I talked with countless doulas, a couple of midwives and even a mom or two who had a homebirth in Georgia several years ago about GFOM's efforts to increase access to midwives in the home setting. We shared our outrage about how women's choices in childbirth are dwindling away as now even nurse midwives are struggling to practice even inside hospitals! Keynote speakers this year included Dr. Bob Sears, Penny Simkin (author of Pregnancy, Childbirth & the Newborn), Marshall & Phyllis Klaus (authors of Your Amazing Newborn) and Suzanne Arms (author of Immaculate Deception). I attended a breakout session given by Suzanne Arms with http://www.birthingthefuture.com/ called "Birth & the Mother-Baby Bond." Suzanne's talk was so powerful, many of us were moved to tears as we heard her say things like, "Every time a baby is born, there is another chance we have to turn the missles around and end the war."
Is homebirth not the way to end the war on women's bodies, the war on medicalized childbirth, the war on skyrocketing healthcare costs that has not much to show for it but sicker babies and mothers? We who support legal access to homebirth midwives, we who give birth at home are the ones who are truly protecting the normalcy of birth. As Suzanne said, we are one quarter of one percent who are protecting the normalcy of birth. And with each normal birth, we pass on a legacy to our children of normal birth. Even as the culture we live in supports medicalized childbirth, our culture cannot survive if we continue to treat mothers and babies the way they are treated in a medical setting.
Those of us who choose homebirth do so for a myriad of reasons. Perhaps one of the most crucial reasons is so that we can stay with our babies after they're born. At a homebirth, there is no separation, no meddling, no unnecessary anything. In fact I spoke with a CPM today who spoke of the husband of one of her recent clients who gave birth at home after having given birth in a hosptial the first time around. The dad wondered why the midwife didn't take the baby from the mother to measure it, weigh it, blah blah blah. When was she going to do all that stuff? In the hospital, it had happened immediately. The midwife reassured him that it would all be done in time, but there was no reason to meddle and that the most important thing she could do at that moment was to keep the baby with his mama. Period. It's the simplist thing really, that has the most significant impact on that baby's feeling of security and that mother's feeling of empowerment. I can meet my baby's needs. Touch it. Sniff it. Taste it. I am enough for my baby. I am exactly what it needs.

Look for a list of ways you can volunteer to help GFOM! We still need postage for mailing out invitations to GA midwives to the High Tea during BOLD next month. We still need acvocacy stuff to sell- t shirts, bumber stickers, etc. We need you to come help us set up for an event or stay late and help us clean up. For more on BOLD, go to http://www.boldatlanta.org/ See you there!

Henci Goer event- a HUGE success!

GFOM Core Group Volunteers:

Rachel, Reid, Jennifer, Natalie, & Krista (not pictured)

http://www.hencigoer.com/

Henci Goer at the book signing last night.

We had over 50 people attend Henci Goer's talk at Horizons School tonight! Wow! What a crowd of expectant moms and dads, doulas, midwives & apprentices, a chiropractor, friends, grandmothers and a few of the cutest babies ever! Henci spoke on the research supporting the safety of VBACs, despite what most mothers are being told these days. I did not know that amniocentesis carries higher risk for the baby than VBAC! Are our expectant mothers being told this?! Furthermore- what hospitals are flat out denying women amnios?!

Have you ever considered that VBAC is not a procedure? And VBAC success depends mostly on midwife or physician management of the VBAC mom. More times than not it's not the woman's body that can't give birth when planning a VBAC- but the mismanaged care she receives from her provider! Denial of food & drink during labor, continuous EFM, inductions (especially Misoprostol) , epidurals, supine & directed pushing all interfere with VBAC success- not the woman's body's fundamental ability to give birth to her baby!


So why all the meddling? You only get one guess- physicians' fear of getting thier pants sued off. So what they offer now for the most part are what Henci called 'Cinderella VBACs.' You can have a VBAC if you don't go past 38 weeks, if your baby's under 7.5lbs, if you don't have a freckle on the upper left quadrant of your right thigh. This is just leaving fewer options for our mothers and causing more dangerous unnecessary meddling in the normal process of giving birth.


GA Friends of Midwives is working to build community so we can change the birth climate in our state to make it more mother-baby friendly. Wherever a mom wants to give birth. Give her access to providers who practice physiologic, evidence-based care instead of what Henci called GOBST care (Good Ol' Boys Sittin' around a Table). One way is best for mothers and babies (and families' pocket books and insurance companies), the other simply best for pysicians' pocket books.

Thank you to Horizons School (http://www.horizonsschool.com/) for donating the venue for tonight, to our volunteers: Reid (for securing the space and organizing us all), Natalie (for handling all ticket sales tonight), Rachel (for providing refreshments), Anna (for handing out flyers with baby-n-sling). Thank you to the Cheeky Maiden from http://www.cheekymaidensoap.com/ for donating a thank you gift for Henci. And to all of the Georgia midwives who came out to tonight's event! You are why there even is a GFOM!

Up next: BOLD event sept. 18-21 http://www.boldatlanta.org/ Stay tuned for ways you can volunteer!

Henci Goer visits Atlanta Aug. 6!

please post far & wide!

GA Friends of Midwives welcomes Henci Goer to Atlanta! Please join us for a talk by Henci Goer, author of The Thinking Woman's Guide to a Better Birth, on Thursday, August 6 from 7-9 pm at the Horizons School (1900 Dekalb Ave, Atlanta, GA 30307). Talk followed by discussion & refreshments. Bring your copy of The Thinking Woman's Guide for a book signing!

Cost: $15, part of the procedes benefits GA Friends of Midwives

Topic:"The Case Against Elective Repeat Cesarean"
…everything you would want to know about vaginal birth after caesarean (VBAC) versus emergency room caesarean (ERC), including:
Does the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists’ (ACOG) VBAC guidelines make sense?
Is ACOG's position ethically sound?
What are the tradeoffs between planned VBAC and ERC?
What are the consequences of multiple VBACs versus multiple ERCs?
Who should labor?
What scar rupture rates and VBAC rates should be achievable?
What policies and practices produce the best outcomes in VBAC labors?

we need your donations!

Hello GA Friends of Midwives,

This is Jennifer Fargár, Chairperson for GFOM and we are planning an even with renowned birth expert, Henci Goer (author of The Thinking Woman’s Guide to a Better Birth, www.hencigoer.com) for Thursday, August 6 in Atlanta. Henci has agreed to split any profits from the Atlanta event with GFOM. I wish we had more notice, but it just didn’t work out that way. But we do have an event planned for September! This is plenty of notice!

At this event, we would like to sell some GA Friends of Midwives STUFF such as t-shirts, bumper stickers, hats, bags, you name it- we are in fundraising mode. How can you help? Yes- YOU!

Please consider purchasing and donating some items for us to sell at our next event. We have many more events planned for the rest of the year and beyond and need money to make them happen- we’re building community to support our legal access to homebirth midwives. So, go to http://shop.cafepress.com/midwives and buy some stuff and donate it to GFOM (if you can add Georgia Friends of Midwives to whatever you have printed, that would be extra cool!!) We can’t all do everything, but we can all do something. I know we are all financially stretched right now, but if everyone bought one t shirt ($22) and/or one onesie ($12.50), you would be making a HUGE contribution to GFOM! A bumper sticker is $5, can you buy 5 of them and donate them to GFOM? A mini button is $2.50!

OR go to http://www.vistaprint.com/personalized-pens.aspx?xnav=LeftItem&xnid=PromotionalGiveaways&dng=1061559 and buy pens that say “Georgia Friends of Midwives” on it and donate them to GFOM! Please contribute something! We need your help to bring our homebirthing community together so every mom who wants one can have legal access to homebirth midwives!

Please let me know what you can contribute ASAP!

Email me if you have any questions at all! I am here to help you help me help our midwives!
Warmest regards,
Jennifer Fargár

jenniferfargar@comcast.net
On behalf of GA Friends of Midwives

Bold/Birth Events have date and location

Mark your Calendars for a Womens Birth Weekend and Baby Fair here in Atlanta.
We will be hosting a birth film showing, A chat with the midwives, a Red Tent, Karen Brody's play BIRTH, Exhibitor workshops and much, much more.

Dates:
Sept.18-20

Location:
Horizon School
1900 Dekalb Ave.
Atlanta
Ga.
United States of America
30307

Please keep checking website for more details and schedule to come!
http://boldatlanta.org/

Donations for Bold Events

GFOM is looking for $5 or more donations to bring a weekend of birth related events to Atlanta. We are hosting BOLD events which will include Karen Brody's Play BIRTH, Film showings, Midwife chat, Art showings, Baby Fair and more. If you'd like to help sponsor any help is appreciated. Please donate here:
http://boldatlanta.org/support_options_and_payment

GFOM Chair Attends Big Push for Midwives Summit

Representing Georgia Friends of Midwives I attended The Big Push for Midwives Summit in Birmingham last week. Almost every state was represented and I am so excited to put into action all of the wonderful, inspiring ideas I learned from other state grassroots leaders and midwives!

As I arrived in Birmingham on Sunday to attend the meet and greet at the Highland Hotel in Five Points, it was pouring down rain. After changing out of my driving-long-distance-clothes (yoga pants and a tank top) and into a more presentable ensemble in the car as the rain beat down on the windshield, I met up with Russ Fawcett, the legislative chair with North Carolina Friends of Midwives and self-proclaimed mid-husband. Oh, did I mention he’s also a nuclear engineer?! I found his mix of midwifery politicking and nuclear engineering absolutely fascinating! After meeting several other midwives and consumer activists from around the country, Russ and I headed over to the Bottletree Café for a rock concert benefit hosted the Alabama Birth Coalition (ABC). http://www.alabamabirthcoalition.org/

Over a dinner of the best black bean burger and sweet potato fries ever, I enjoyed the music of several bands who donated their time to the ABC to help raise money for the legislative battle Alabama faces as it prepares to gain licensure for their Certified Professional Midwives. This was the first sign that wow- was this trip going to be worth my while! A rock concert benefit! GFOM is so going to borrow that idea from ABC! There were mommies, daddies and babies everywhere- in a bar! Babies in slings, toddlers holding their mammas’ hands, dancing with their daddies. Plus every dollar spent was matched- all benefitting ABC. It was a loud, loud rockin’evening! They even thru in a few testimonials from moms and dads who spoke about why homebirth is important to them. I spoke with Susan Petrus & LeAnne Pearce about borrowing their brain-child idea and hosting a GFOM rock concert benefit in Georgia!

A small-town celebrity- the Cheeky Maiden, aka Missi Burgess, herself showed up at the Bottletree Café. (http://www.cheekymaidensoap.com/) I actually smelled her before I saw her- carrying her little box of essential oil-infused natural handcrafted soap around the Bottletree Café. She generously donated the welcome gifts to each Push attendee. An extra plus for me was that the Cheeky Maiden and her family put me up in their home in cute little Calera, AL for the 3 nights I was attending the Big Push for Midwives Summit. I am confirming that yes, her soap company is run right out of her home. I stayed an extra day in AL shrink wrapping and labeling soap myself, with ‘help’ from little Arwen, age 4, and Charis, age 3, the Cheeky Maiden’s two daughters, both born at home- so was son Ezra, age 2, but he couldn’t be bothered with soap duties as there were toy block towers to destroy! By the way, the Cheeky Maiden’s home smells as wonderful as you would imagine- with soap-curing aromas wafting into the house from the sudio-converted garage.

Anyway, Monday morning I braved pounding rain and rush hour traffic and arrived at the Highland Conference Center in Five Points, Birmingham and spent the next 9 hours soaking up all the ideas I could from other states grassroots leaders and midwives. I could hardly write fast enough to keep up with the brainstorms! The GFOM steering committee (myself, Reid, Krista, Natalie, Sonya) are currently in the process of organizing all the wonderful ideas from other states and will be putting many of them into action in the next few weeks and months. Our immediate efforts will focus on fundraising and building our membership. The Big Push was full of great fundraising ideas that will simultaneously build a geographically diverse membership: homebirth baby calendar, movie nights, picnics, midwife appreciation day, BOLD/Red Tent, rock n roll benefit concert, GFOM t shirts, bumper stickers, fun run/walk/stroll, trivia night, garage sales, you name it.

After a session on ‘social networking’ at the Big Push presented by 3 very young astute gentlemen from http://www.companyfiftytwo.com/, I learned some awesome tools on how to streamline our communication process in an effort to stay in better contact with GFOM members and to expand our membership base beyond homebirth families. We want you to know that we are STILL HERE. STILL WORKING towards licensure of Certified Professional Midwives. Other states confirmed what we are experiencing in GA, that more and more families are choosing homebirth- as hospital midwives are being ‘let go’ all around Atlanta and beyond, and maternity care in GA is not improving- duh! We are WORKING TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT THAT! But we need 100 people doing 1 thing each- not 1 person (or in our case 5) doing a hundred things!

We are calling on you- you who support homebirth in GA- to step up and answer our calls to action and our calls to help! There’s plenty to do! Stay tuned for a list of how you can help!

Tuesday’s Big Push session focused on consumer efforts and avoiding burnout as grassroots organizers. We all have families, other jobs, run small businesses out of home offices and have lives to live. My 3 hour drive home on Wednesday night was exhilarating! My brain was so full of wonderful ideas gleaned from other states! I was so inspired! Everyone can do something! For example: can you and your kids have a lemonade stand (or garage sale?) this summer and donate the proceeds to GA Friends of Midwives? Talk to those who stop by to buy some lemonade about midwives! Even if they wouldn’t necessarily choose a homebirth, most folks don’t see why you shouldn’t be able to. Go 1 step further and ask them to sign up for GFOM; take their name, email address and zip code along with $1 and send it to us! (If we’re ever in a position where we need constituents from specific zip codes to call their representatives- one call could make a HUGE difference!).

Another idea: Go to http://www.cafepress.com/ and buy a few clever t shirts that say something like ‘Georgia Women Deserve Midwives’ or ‘Midwives Help People Out’ or even onsies that say ‘A Midwife Helped me Out’ or ‘Safely Born at Home with a Midwife’ and donate them to GFOM so we can sell them as fundraisers! Can’t buy a few? Just buy one! Everyone can do something!

Thank you for all you do!

Petition to include CPMS in healthcare reform

Please sign this petition in support of including Certified Professional Midwives and out-of-hospital maternity care in federal healthcare reform Today!
http://tinyurl.com/Support-CPMs-Petition

Bold Atlanta

GFOM is working with Bold Atlanta! It will be an amazing weekend for birth related activities! We need help!

www.BoldAtlanta.org

New Website!!

Thanks to our amazing Rachel Harp, we have a new website!

She did such a fantastic job!! Please check it out and join us there for our forums!!

www.gafriendsofmidwives.org

GFOM Meeting and Film Showing June 27th

GFOM will be having a Monthly Meeting and showing the film "Pregnancy in America"

Sat. June 27th

4:00-7:00pm

Kaishi Atlanta Yoga Center
1681 McClendon Avenue
Atlanta Ga.

Please RSVP if you are attending,

Gafriendsofmidwives@gmail.com

Conferences were a success!!

GFOM had a wonderful time with our table at the ICAN and LLL conferences.
Thank you to everyone for your donations of raffle prizes, baked goods, and time!

We are excited for our future events to come!

GFOM Meeting and Film Showing MAY 9th

Please Join Us!

When: Saturday May 9, 2009

4pm-7pm
Where: The Self Discovery Center

1315 S. Ponce de Leon Ave

North East Atlanta GA

Why:

Film!: “Homebirth: The Spirit, The Science, and the Mother”
To Unite! in protecting our birth choices in Georgia
Good Food! Vegetarian buffet offered at $6 a person)

What to bring:

Your families, friends and neighbors
Your favorite floor pillow (chairs provided as well)

$5 suggested donation

(all proceeds go to GFOM)

ACTION ALERT! last minute bake sale effort at ICAN!

Hello all,
So many of you have expressed a desire to help out so here's your
chance!

We just got permission to hold a bake sale fundraiser at the ICAN
conference and would like to ask for volunteers to make baked goods
for the effort.

We'd like to charge $1.50 per ziplocked bagged item. Examples would
be 3 homebaked cookies, 1 large muffin, 1 large slice of nut bread.
If you would be able to help out, we need to have the items delivered
no later then Wednesday evening (April 22nd). There will be a drop
off place in Decatur, Buckhead, or Candler Park/L5P provided when you
email us.

We would appreciate it if you could let us know what amount you would
be able to offer up, bag these items up and give us a list of
ingredients (for those who might have allergy concerns).

Please email gafriendsofmidwives@gmail.com ...@gmail.com to let us know if you can
help.

Thank you so much for your help- look forward to serving with you to
help our midwives!

Reid Forrester
on behalf of GFOM

Free Screening of Orgasmic Birth

Event: Free Screening of Orgasmic Birth

"To Benefit ICAN of Atlanta"

What: Fundraiser

Host: Baby Steps - Atlanta

Start Time: Saturday, May 23 at 6:00pm

End Time: Saturday, May 23 at 9:00pm

Where: Life University



To see more details and RSVP, follow the link below:

http://www.facebook.com/n/?event.php&eid=71038423116&mid=49d6dbG59099f95G4c046eG7

Idaho becomes 26th state to license CPMs!

Midwifery Legislation Triumph in Idaho!Dear Friends,The Big Push for Midwives campaign,TheBigPushforMidwiv es.org , has issued a press release with the following very exciting announcement:
Idaho Pushes Midwife Movement to the Tipping PointPhysician and Midwife Groups Forge Unprecedented Alliance as Idaho Becomes the 26th State to Pass Legislation to Legalizing Certified Professional Midwives BOISE, ID (April 1, 2009) Governor C.L. Butch Otter signed into law today a bill to license and regulate Certified Professional Midwives, making Idaho the 26th state to legally authorize them to provide out-of-hospital maternity care. In a notable reversal of longstanding anti-midwife policies, medical groups worked together with legislators, midwives, and advocates to reach consensus on a law that provides for independent practice, mutual collaboration, and the rights of parents to choose where and how their babies are born."This is a great day for midwives and home birth advocates all across the country," said Kyndal May of Idahoans for Midwives. "We truly have reached the tipping point, breaking through the medical lobby's longstanding opposition and developing a legislative consensus model that other states are looking to follow." Certified Nurse-Midwives (CNMs), who practice primarily in hospital settings, are legally authorized in all 50 states, while Certified Professional Midwives (CPMs), who specialize in out-of-hospital birth, until today were legally authorized to practice in just half the states. Representatives from The Big Push for Midwives Campaign noted that Idaho typifies recent legislative trends across the country, as a growing number of states come closer to passing CPM legislation.
And here's a bit more on the Big Push:
Through its work with state-level advocates, the Big Push is helping to forge anew model of U.S. maternity care built on expanding access to out-of-hospital maternity care and CPMs, who provide affordable, quality, community-based care that is proven to reduce costly and preventable interventions as well as the rate of low-birth weight and premature births. Also, the Big Push is convening this summer in Alabama. For more information, go to: http://pushsummit. eventbrite. com/.Sincerely,Arielle Greenberg Bywater, "sidekick"

GFOM needs volunteers for Conferences!

Hello GFOM members,
we need volunteers from those of you attending the ICAN, or the LLL conference to help wo"man" our information table. Please
email if able to do any of these shifts :)
It's easy!

Time lots still needed are:

ICAN
Friday 4/24
2:30-5:00pm
5:00-7:00pm

LLL
Friday 5/1
11:00-2:00pm
2:00-5:30pm

Saturday 5/2
8:00-11:00am

Donations for Conferences

Thank you
Sleepy Wraps for your donation of a sling!

Thank you!
Bravado for your gift certificate for a nursing bra!

Thank you
Preggie Pops for your samples of lollipops and drops!

Thank you
Earth Mama Angel Baby for your baby product donation!

Thank you
Gina from Chiropractic Transformations Center for Massage

Thank you
Hotslings for Sling

Thank you
Mother-ease for Cloth Diaper!

Industrialized nations such as ours would not stand for another branch of medicine being practiced with antiquated and unscientifically supported methods and beliefs- can you imagine a heart surgeon using techniques from the 1950s?!! And, yet, that is exactly what hospital staff (obstetricians and their colleagues) are doing to women in labor! Women in our country have been sold a pack of lies. Birth is not dangerous! Interference is dangerous! I am a homebirth mom and also a certified Doula. As a Doula I see firsthand the mistreatment of women and their babies and the abuse of power from hospital staff. The misuse and abuse of medication and unnecessary routine procedures during labor and birth causing a cascade of further interventions (iatrogenic)- an astounding amount of it not even supported by scientific evidence! (Browse the works of Henci Goer and Dr. Marsden Wagner.) Homebirth for healthy women with a skilled attendant (i.e., a midwife) is safe- the woman is supported in creating an healthy pregnancy to avoid complications, in staying vertical and mobile during labor , encouraged to eat and drink, to go at HER pace, to trust her instincts, and to assume any pushing position SHE wants. Scientific evidence (and common sense) says the best pushing position is vertical- not lying flat on your back pulling your knees to your ears! Hello fetal distress and maternal exhaustion! Hospital births with their supine pushing positions, withholding of food and drink, dangerous medications with all their side effects, impatient and busy doctors and nurses, electronic fetal monitors, episiotomies, immobility, inductions, cesarean sections, et al are dangerous. Why is everyone questioning the safety of homebirth when the countries who employ more midwives and have more homebirths per capita loose FEWER babies and mothers at the time of birth than in America- where we rank an embarrassing #28 (according to the CDC at http://www.cdc.gov/omhd/amh/factsheets/infant.htm) in infant mortality and where most women give birth in a hospital?! Birth is safer in Cuba, Slovenia, and the Czech Republic than in the US for crying out loud! (https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2091rank.html). We should, instead, be questioning the integrity and safety of the entire obstetrical monopoly. Obstetricians are surgeons & I am thankful they are available to me if my life was in danger. But normal birth is safe and obstetricians have no business managing normal birth. High-risk birth, yes, normal birth (which are most of them!!) no. If you do not want surgery (e.g., episiotomy or cesarean) then do NOT go to a surgeon. I would love to come on your show both as a homebirth mom and as a birth professional. People absolutely have the wrong idea about homebirth- but that is because they have the wrong idea about birth. Birth is not a medical emergency as we have been taught from shows like TLC’s A Baby Story, ER and other soap operas. Only rarely does it need medical intervention- very rarely. And then thank goodness for the hospital with all its life-saving equipment. I am not anti- hospital nor am I anti-doctor. I am anti lies. The truth is: Birth is safe. Interference is risky.

I love this quote and think it sums it all up perfectly: "The midwife considers the miracle of childbirth as normal, and leaves it alone unless there's trouble. The obstetrician normally sees childbirth as trouble: if [s/he] leaves it alone, it's a miracle." (Sheila Stubbs)

Midwifery Task Force Final Report

You can read a report from the Task Force here:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/13830964/Midwifery-Task-Force-Final-Report-1210108

google calandar

This a public calandar for Ga. Friends of Midwives. We will be posting all our events here. We are also opening up this calendar to the birth community if you'd like to post public events here as well. This will be a good place to keep the community informed on what's happening in the pregnancy, birth, breastfeeding and related fields and events. If'd you'd like to post events here please email gafriendsofmidwives@gmail.com. Thank you!

New Google Group

We are refreshing our GFOM email contact list. We are switching from yahoo groups to google groups so we can have those folk interested in staying active and involved registered.

Please join our group!
http://groups.google.com/group/Gafriendsofmidwives/members_invite?pli=1

You can choose you setting on how to receive emails under your settings.

How do you want to read this group?

No Email I will read this group on the web

Abridged Email (No more than 1 email per day)
Get a summary of new activity each day

Digest Email (Approximately 1 email per day)
Get up to 25 full new messages bundled into a single email

Email (Approximately 1 email per day)
Send each message to me as it arrives

See you there!!

Clothes and Toys donations

GFOM is collecting baby/childrens clothing and toys. We will have a consignment sale as a fundraiser. Please bring donations to the monthly meetings.

Thank you for the donations received at the meeting today.

Donations for Conferences

GFOM is looking for donations so that we can use for our tables door prizes and give aways for the upcoming conferences and future events. If you have something to donate please email; gafriendsofmidwives@gmail.com

Thank you for the following donations!!

Amazing hand crocheted baby hats~ Anna Hopper

Awesome birth/baby ball ~ Rachel Harp www.thenaturalmotheringshop.com
www.thenaturalmotheringcenter.com
www.atlantadiaperservice.com
www.atlantacloth.com
www.atlantawestmoms.com


2 gift certificates for 30 minute massages ~ Karen Rowlee
gwinnettMuscular.com

Huge Box of giveaways ~ Becky Van Note

Conferences

GFOM will be attending the following conferences and we need volunteers to help with time slots at our table.

http://www.ican-online.org/conference/index.html

http://www.lllofga.org/2009/

GFOM meeting

We had a fantastic GFOM meeting today. We had about 18 wonderful people show up to help us start new projects and ideas.
We are very excited about this consumer group growing and getting new and exciting things happening here in Ga.

Here is a list of new ideas we got today that we can start getting folks to work on:

-Create a catchy slogan
-Create postcards to send to Board of Health every time new homebirth baby is born
-Create blog site
-Create annual calendar to sell for fundraiser
-Send GFOM forms to midwives and follow up
-Hold an honor your elected official day breakfast
-Host a CNM meet and greet
-Coffee break with Board of Health
-Re crate new email group to re vamp email info
- add an action alert group as well as a chat group
-Create Newsletter and email as well as paper mail
-Give away drawing for signing up to newsletter
-Contact local businesses for Donations
-Perhaps selling baked goods at conferences
-Creating a GFOM meet up group in different neighborhoods
-Setting up GFOM at local arts and craft festivals and such and have a nursing station to attract moms
-Sharing links with other supporting groups such as Atlanta Cloth, Baby Steps and so forth.
-Create a Ga. home birth website

If anyone would like to take on starting one of these please email or post here we need all the help we can get :)